


Sugar and Spice: 100 Edvy Themes

by rokosourobouros



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Edward Elric Swears, Fluff and Humor, M/M, One Shot Collection, Other, something for everyone! except people who hate edvy idk you probably won't have a great time, various AUs and various prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokosourobouros/pseuds/rokosourobouros
Summary: 100 oneshots for my one true pairing - Edward and Envy!The oneshots will range all over - 2003, Brotherhood, AU, hateshipping, cute fluff, crack, and the rating may go up for a few smutty chapters but we'll see. Starting at T for now.All the standards apply - don't like, don't read, reviews are appreciated, beware the tags per chapter, etc. Attempting to update this daily during the pandemic because i am BORED.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Envy
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55





	1. Arsenic, Coffee and Late Night Stalking (Laughter)

**Author's Note:**

> *looks left*
> 
> *looks right*
> 
> *thumbs up*
> 
> Hello Edvy fandom! It has been fifty million years! I think some of us are still alive! Way back in 2012 (eight years ago, holy shit), I wrote a series of oneshots/prompts for Edvy, Livejournal-style. That collection actually got all the way to 100, and is up at Beauty and the Beast: Edvy 100 Themes. (P.S. Please go read it on Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8174299/1/Beauty-and-the-Beast-Edvy-100-Themes. The one on AO3 is unfinished, because I got distracted in the middle of transferring it all and never got back to it bc ADHD.) 
> 
> Obviously, it's been eight years. My writing has changed a lot, and so have I as a person. For starters, turns out I'm trans! (Anybody who used to read my work: Wow. We're shocked. Truly. Incredible. Yeah, yeah, shut up.) Anyway, it means some of my old writing is still fun to read, some of it is........ interesting. So, this is me returning to those same 100 prompts, with eight years more of experience, and writing some more Edvy!
> 
> Somebody in the distance: "does this have anything to do with being stuck inside because of the global lockdown"? How dare you imply that being stuck inside 24/7 and my life grinding to a halt could have any impact on me returning to my OTPs of old.... yes, obviously. But hey, it's fun!
> 
> Oh, also, I'm using a random number generator, so these are in a different order than in the original. Just to shake things up. *And* I will be deliberately (and lovingly, in-group-style) poking fun at some of the old Edvy tropes. I miss our fandom sometimes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward Elric is being stalked, but it's not a big deal, really. He just wishes his stalker was a little better at it so he didn't have to feel so bad for them.

**1\. Laughter**

_**or** _

**Arsenic, Coffee and Late Night Stalking**

Edward Elric could be accused of a lot of things, but he couldn't be accused of being stupid. Or at least, you could try, but you'd be wrong. Sure, he had moments of being dense, particularly when it came to people. But he caught on to _significantly_ more than people thought he did.

For one, that he'd been followed all the way from Rizenbul. Probably all the way from Central, honestly. It was small things that gave it away, like people who all looked different but had exactly the same quirks of body language or – hilariously – the same clothing. Once or twice, yeah, you didn't notice. After a while, it was hard not to.

Two, that he didn't have much to worry about. It was a gamble, but he figured that if he'd made it all the way through the Promised Day and the resulting chaos without his mysterious stalker putting a bullet into his head, he wasn't in much danger now. Besides, after this long of persistent danger, you just stopped _caring._ Not in the 'death-seeker' way; just in the 'can you hurry up with the assassination attempt, my food's getting cold' kind of way.

Three, he was pretty sure he knew who it was. One and two rather answered that question for him. The only thing he was stuck on was the persistent, ever-present _why._ And that was the kicker. He never knew _why_ people did things. As far as he was concerned, the circumambulations of human hearts were a divine – and therefore pretty but ultimately pointless – mystery.

So Ed sat down in the armchair in his Aerugoan hotel suite, opened a book, and propped his boots up on the table. He'd left the window open.

The first crash came a few minutes later, followed by a quiet curse. It wasn't so much a crash as a 'thump', but for somebody attempting to be _quiet,_ it was an abysmal failure. Ed flipped the page in his book, struggling not to laugh. He didn't want to scare him away.

He resisted the urge to look as he felt the sizzle of alchemy in the air. It felt different when homunculi used their powers, but it still had that faint odour of ozone to it, like a rainstorm. Then a dark shape crawled across the ceiling, and Ed resolutely turned the page again, a twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Oh dear. The dark shape – a little salamander, it appeared – had decided to clamber onto the light fixture. Ed flicked his eyes upwards, wondering if he'd be smart enough to-

The salamander put its paws right on the Aerugoan anti-tamper array. There was a sizzle of red sparks, and a moment later, a very startled Envy appeared mid-air before he and the light fixture crashed to the floor.

Ed snickered, unable to keep it suppressed anymore. "I _was_ about to warn you."

Envy glared at him, then without breaking their locked gazes, flicked ceiling plaster off his shoulder. "…You could look a _little_ terrified."

"Weren't you a spy? Shouldn't you be a little better at this?"

"Oh, sure, yeah, I was a wartime spy, that's the same as following the sneakiest motherfucker in the universe around a goddamn rural olive garden. What's it like being the most boring person in the world?" Envy crossed his arms, clearly trying to decide between going on the attack or just sulking.

Ed sat back in the chair. Honestly, he wasn't sure _why_ he wasn't more scared. The moment in the tunnels was still in his mind. But more than that – his mission was over. He'd restored his brother. He'd done what he set out to do. He'd _won._ Envy had lost.

He could be bitter, if he wanted. There were plenty of reasons to be. But it was hard to be scared of somebody who was stalking you mostly out of sheer, unadulterated boredom.

He opened his book again, still chuckling. "I made you coffee, if you want some. Unless you want to keep skulking around like a shadow."

Envy narrowed his eyes, staring at Edward like he was waiting for a catch. Fair call, honestly. "…Poisoned coffee?"

"Normal coffee. Unless you want some arsenic. I don't know what you like, and I'm sure I have some somewhere-" Ed caught the startled look on Envy's face. "I'm _kidding._ It's a _joke._ Do abominations from beyond the Gate not do jokes?"

"I don't know," Envy grouched, although he was eyeing the coffee with barely-concealed curiosity. "Do alchemists with god complexes and codependence issues not do lifelong bitter grudges? Like _normal people?_ "

"Nope," Ed pronounced. "Now drink your damn coffee before it gets cold."

And, well, what do you know. He did.

He was going to get him back for the codependence comment, though. Eventually.


	2. The Edge Electric (Ice)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Envy asks for sanctuary, and Ed gives it to him - grudgingly. But it turns out that they have more in common than they planned on, storms raging underneath their skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one will make much more sense to people who have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) than people without, but here’s the brief context: BPD is characterized by, among other things, extreme anger/outbursts, lashing out, and feeling like you’re losing control during those episodes. This short is very much about having anger issues/BPD, and reveals part of why I identify so much with these two, oop~
> 
> What’s going on in Envy’s head here is up to the reader to decide ultimately! But I personally very much subscribe to the 2003 headcanon that Envy would be a much better person outside of Dante’s (terrible, abusive) influence. Not to say that it’s immediate, mind you. But he’s been away from Dante for a year or two here.
> 
> Notes: 2003 canon with some AU details clarified in-text, T rating.
> 
> TWs in effect here, for rough sex (fade-to-black), BPD outbursts/mental illness Relatable Feels, implied parental abuse

**2\. Ice**

**or**

**The Edge Electric**

He was having another episode. He _knew_ that, consciously, but as Ed crushed the ice cubes in the palm of his flesh hand, he still wondered when he’d become this awful of a person. He could barely remember what he’d actually said. Just Winry storming out with tears in her eyes, and Al sighing at him with a “Really? _Really?_ ” before going after her.

They’d be a while. That was fine. Ed pretended not to see the growing affection between Winry and Al, but it made him happy. Al had his body back. Things were better. Things were fixed. But –

But _he_ wasn’t.

The ice was helping. He didn’t know why – just that for whatever reason, bringing his body temperature down helped take the edge off of his pointless, petty anger. The problem was that it helped _after_ the damage was done. What he needed to do was figure out how to stop the stupid comments, the barbed words, _before_ he decided he was going to say them.

Fucking Christ.

“Well, that was a shitshow.”

And, of course, there was what the fight had been about. Ed sighed, and leaned his head against the fridge. “Not _now,_ Envy.”

“What, worried your girlfriend will throw another fit if she finds out I’m already here?” Envy tutted. “I heard you, you know. Saying that it was a _possibility,_ that you _wanted_ to give me sanctuary. Never mind that I’ve been here for a week.”

“Yeah, and I’m tempted to throw you out.” He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He wasn’t any angrier with Envy than he was with Winry. It was just… the whole thing sucked. Everything sucked. And his inability to cope with it _normally_ sucked even more.

“…Will you?”

It almost sounded like a genuine question, so Ed decided to treat it as one. He straightened up and rubbed the last bits of dampness off of his hand on his trousers. “No. Not yet.”

Envy stayed seated in the window, the moonlight casting his shadow on the kitchen floor. He’d be gone soon enough, disappeared back into the crevices and dark places of the Rizenbul house. But always there. Always listening.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. It kept him honest.

\---

The homunculi had gone to ground after Dante’s death, what of them remained, so when Envy reappeared in the abandoned barn that Ed was investigating, the reaction was immediate.

Ed held the automail blade to Envy’s neck. “I was wondering what they meant by ghosts,” he growled. “Been a while.”

Envy just stared at the blade, then flicked his eyes up to Ed. “Any chance-“

“I’m not letting you get another gut shot on me. I almost died. You’re damn lucky things worked out the way they did.” A dual transmutation circle drawn in blood, trading the Stone that transgressed on the Gate’s boundary for the body it had stolen. And he’d been so close, so close to going through it himself –

Envy lowered his hands, not even trying to look defensive anymore. “Not as lucky as you think,” he said darkly. His eyes still shot embers of hatred at Ed, but there was something else there. Fear, perhaps. Or maybe only a restless watchfulness that hadn’t been there before, the look of somebody who had once held all the cards and now had nothing but his own wits.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe put down the weapon and we can talk like-“

“Like what? Brothers?”

“Low blow.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Envy laughed at that one, wicked grin returning and making him look a little more like himself. He really didn’t look good, Ed realized. His hair hung more limply around his shoulders, and the bags under his eyes didn’t herald anything good. “Okay, fair point. Fine, like _brothers,_ ” he said mockingly, “if that makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Figured.”

“What do you _want?_ ”

Envy chewed on the inside of his lip, and Ed recognized the attempt to overcome senseless pride – mostly because he’d done it enough times himself. “Sanctuary,” he said finally.

“Sanctuary. You want _protection?_ From what?”

“She’s alive, pipsqueak, alright? And you do not want to know what happens when you disappoint her.”

A chill ran down Ed’s spine. “Dante?”

Envy winced, as if saying her name could summon her into existence. “Yeah. Not _very,_ mind you. But enough to make my life very, _very_ miserable.”

“I thought you’d be loyal to her.”

“What, to _that_ bitch? She’s had me collared and leashed for centuries.” Envy rolled his shoulders, like he was trying to dislodge something uncomfortable. “No, trust me, it was better with her dead. And I’d rather keep my distance til she is.”

“And so you come to me for protection,” Ed mused, returning his arm to normal. Strangely enough, he actually believed Envy. Then he crossed his arms, unable to help the smirk. “ _That_ must sting a bit, huh-“

The arm slamming him to the wall and pinning his throat shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Ed had forgotten that an emaciated, exhausted Envy was no less dangerous. “Watch your words, pipsqueak,” Envy hissed, a grim smile lingering on his lips. “We all know I’ve got a bad temper. Wouldn’t want me to do something _stupid._ ”

“You won’t kill me.”

“No. Probably not. I’d still avoid pissing me off.”

Ed pushed the arm away. “Fine. Fine, we can figure something out. _If-_ “ He raised a finger to Envy’s face. “you’re telling the truth. I’m gonna need some insurance.”

Envy pulled a face. “I knew you were going to say that. Disgusting. Very well.” He paused. “Is one of your ground rules going to be _no_ murdering, or-“

“None. No death. Zero.”

“Well, you’re absolutely no fun at all.”

Ed couldn’t decide whether Envy was fucking with him on purpose or not. Either way, he thought this was probably a bad idea.

\---

The day after his fight with Winry, everybody pretended things were back to normal. They were, mostly. Ed kept trying to find a way to apologize, and maybe to mention that Envy was already here. Or maybe he’d do what he threatened and just tell Envy to leave.

He did neither. Instead, the sun set, and he went outside to sit on the riverbank, like he’d done all the time as a kid. Sometimes, Al joined him. He doubted he’d get any company tonight.

He was wrong. A reflection appeared in the water, and he glanced up at Envy, who was giving him an unreadable look.

“Come to bait me some more?” he grumbled.

“No, actually.” Envy sat down. “…I mean, I can if you want. You make it very easy.”

“Oh, would you _fuck off?_ ” He sprang at him, hands closing around the homunculus’s neck, rage boiling over and searching desperately for an outlet. _empty empty empty all of this around you and you only feel fucking empty_

Envy didn’t fight him. He just grinned up at him through the tangle of his green hair, not breathing and not needing to. “Oh, will you feel better if you break my neck? Hm?”

“I _might,_ ” he seethed, but he loosened his hands anyway. Honestly, all he wanted to do was cry. But Envy saw him draw away, and a moment later, he was shoved to the ground, a knee digging into his ribcage.

“Come on, pipsqueak. You’re better than _that._ ”

“Fuck you!” Ed managed to get a handful of Envy’s hair, but it slipped out of his hands like smoke. The punch he threw did land, and he sent both of them off balance, toppling into the water. He couldn’t breathe for a second, then rose gasping out of the water. “You skinny – fucking – asshole –“

Envy perched himself up on his elbows, the shallow water at the bank breaking around him. “At least I’m _honest._ I don’t let anybody think I give a shit. You, on the other hand-“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Ed warned.

“Where do you even _keep_ all that anger? Where do you put it? Other than throwing it at people, of course-“

Ed went for him again, and this time, Envy caught his hands, Ed straddling him uselessly and unable to do anything more. Then Envy let him come down, down – and captured his lips in a bruising kiss. Teeth and tongues, just as much a fight as the fists and fingers had been.

There was a second of hesitation in his mind, but the rage that always seemed so close to the surface was driving now. Ed put his hand back on Envy’s throat, trying to bruise him, trying to hurt him, even as he felt his clothes being stripped off.

Yeah. Yeah, this worked.

\---

Afterwards, as Ed used alchemy to wring the water out of his damp shirt and avoided Envy’s eyes, he noticed that Envy was staring at the sky, completely unbothered. Like they weren’t mortal enemies-turned-slightly-less-mortal-enemies, who’d just had sex. It wasn’t even like Ed was a virgin. All of his lovers had been like this, though, stolen moments for when he needed to let the monster that ate at his insides go _somewhere._

He paused in the middle of shrugging his coat back on. “How did you know?”

Envy didn’t say “Know what?”. He didn’t shrug, or act confused, or start another fight. He didn’t bait, or joke. And he didn’t point out how much _better_ Ed looked, surely as much better as he felt, with water dripping from his hair and a flush in his cheeks and the shaking, electric energy finally dissolved for a little while.

He just laughed.

“Trust me, pipsqueak. You don’t live long if you don’t figure out other ways of dealing with your crazy. You don’t think I kill _everybody_ I get a hate-on for, do you?”

Ed snorted. “I did kind of think that, actually, yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s a fast way to get killed right back. Or outed as immortal, in my case.” Envy glanced over at him. “…Wanna know why you keep getting pissed off with blondie?”

“You don’t know jackshit about me.”

“She doesn’t hear you. She doesn’t mean to, but she ignores why you feel the way you do. There’s a difference between disagreeing with you and pretending your stake in something doesn’t exist.”

Ed raised an eyebrow. “Wise words from the sadistic murderer.”

“ _Now_ who’s making assumptions?”

“You literally called yourself that.”

“Oh, I suppose I did.” Envy stuck a blade of grass into his mouth. “…The ice trick is smart.” There wasn’t a thank you attached, but Ed thought perhaps he heard one anyway.

He glanced at the river – the river that was _frighteningly_ cold at night – and noticed that Envy’s toes were barely grazing the surface of the water. “Yeah. No problem.”

Time to go talk to Winry.

_She doesn’t hear you._

Then he’d try harder. He’d keep his head. He wouldn’t lash out. She wasn’t trying to hurt him – and he wasn’t trying to hurt her – and they _both_ knew it.

She was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. Before either of them said a word, he opened the freezer, and put a few cubes of ice into his pocket.

“There we go,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

\---

He swore it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. Not the anger – that he knew he had to live with. But he became accustomed to the rest of it too. How Envy would find him when he’d driven himself half crazy and drive him the rest of the way. How they’d push each other to the edge electric, until he was too exhausted for fury, too sore for petty fury.

He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask. How Envy had figured it out for himself. Why Envy got that look in his eyes sometimes, like he was somewhere else, in a different argument, talking to somebody else.

But in the end, it didn’t matter, as long as he came back. And Ed came back, too, crawling back over the edge, the monster back in its cage for one more day.


	3. All Her Borrowed Faces (Masks)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Envy feels made of nothing but masks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …okay, so I didn’t INTEND this to be a trans thing, but it sure happened anyway. Metaphors are fun.
> 
> NOTES: 2003-canon, ending AU, tone: angst-ish/hurt/comfort?
> 
> TW: transphobia/transmisogyny, emotional abuse, off-screen/referenced sex, identity problems, grief

**3\. Masks**

**or**

**All Her Borrowed Faces**

Sometimes, he feels like he’s made of nothing but masks, leather and wood and metal and glass all piled up on top of each other in an shifting, inconstant half-human shape. Sometimes isn’t quite right – he feels like that _most_ of the time, all of the time, always – he just can ignore it sometimes and push it into the background.

He wears the obedient son mask for his mother when she wants it. Sometimes, she wants to pretend that she actually has a maternal bone in her body, that they aren’t just playacting at a relationship that he doesn’t remember beyond a few dim vignettes. He’ll say please and thank you and play along until the mask begins to slip.

For his work carrying out her orders, he has plenty of faces at his disposal. Women, men, children. The ladies’ masks fit the best, although he’ll never admit that to anybody else – how much (she) enjoys it when people open doors for (her) and kiss (her) hand, how well the dresses fit not just (her) stolen body but the restless shapes underneath.

And there is no end to them, really. For Greed, he finds and builds one of steel, for as long as he needs it – angry, spiteful, giving as good as he gets. For Lust, he builds one of silk and ribbons, a jester and courtesan in equal part, pressing fragile kisses to her cheek when she needs comfort, pushing her dress up to her hips and biting holes into her neck and shoulders when she needs more than that. For Gluttony, his mask is half clay and half iron, a keeper, a jailer, a parent, malleable but only so far.

Round and round they dance. He never destroys them. Every shape he takes, every face he forms, they hang like art in the dusty, empty gallery of his memory. There’s nothing else to put there – just all the things he was always supposed to be, all the people he was meant to replace.

When the dust settles, and his life is gone, it’s why he can’t find it in him to grieve. What is there to grieve? One of his masks cries for Lust, ribbons streaming blue out of empty eyeholes to the ground. The steel screams with shining teeth. The obedient son tries – and fails – to keep its shape, and starts to deform and twist as the effort of its maintenance finally takes its toll on the gentle cheekbones, the woven-gold hair, the face made to look like the perfect blend of hers and her long-departed lover’s. The truth is, he never looked like that. It’d be lovely to believe that.

The dust settles. He doesn’t react. Not even when the person he can’t find a mask for kneels down in front of him, snapping his fingers in front of his face. It takes a rude comment for Envy to lash out and grab his wrist.

“Enough,” he says, then keeps saying it, over and over. “Enough. Enough. Enough.” He sounds ridiculous. Broken record, skipping.

He doesn’t expect sympathy. You need to have a face, a heart, a brain, to expect anything much. But he definitely doesn’t expect the cathedral to empty out, for the child-Wrath to vanish along with the younger Elric, the woman who Dante would have cannibalized –

It’s just him and Edward, now. Edward, alive, because sometimes fate just works out that way, doesn’t it? A missed shot, a second lost, a second gained-

“Are you alright?”

Envy doesn’t react outwardly, but the anger builds inside him until he thinks he’s going to scream. Is _he_ alright? Nobody asks him that. Nobody _needs_ to ask him that.

“I don’t… I can’t _trust_ you. But I’m not going to leave you here.”

_Why not? Why not? Why not?_

This is ridiculous. It’s pathetic. He’s the terror of their lives, the monster in the darkness – the masks keep spinning in his head, not that one, not that one, he needs to find the right face to tell Edward to _leave,_ to go _away,_ to let him figure out what the hell happens next

(-who are you without her hands guiding you, because you sure as hell don’t remember the rest-)

(you are nothing without me)

(he created you but I molded you and never forget)

All of these faces that don’t mean a damn thing.

“Envy? Or – I don’t know. I don’t know what to call you. I’m guessing that’s – Lust never told me, but she gave you those names, right?”

(don’t talk about Lust don’t don’t don’t)

More blue ribbons. More sequins. All he needs is one more mask and he’ll be fine.

Instead they all fall away, too far out of reach. They can feel themself transforming, but they don’t feel much else – no, that’s a lie. They feel the one thing they feared, that they were trying to avoid, the warm trickle of tears down their face as they escape the body that’s supposed to be cold as ice and twice as vicious.

“I was wondering what you really looked like.”

She wasn’t born with this face. She knows that much from old photos, all the guidance on who it was she was meant to be, meant to replace, meant to alleviate the pain of losing.

She wasn’t born with this face. But it’s hers.

Envy doesn’t sob, or anything so humiliating. But she sits there and cries anyway, the masks gone and destroyed.

And Edward – for the first time in his life, or at least that she knows of, he’s patient. He’s quiet. And he’s true to his word. He doesn’t leave without her.


	4. Like Blood, Like Roses (Setting You Free)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Envy doesn't feel guilt, but all alone in the darkness, the face of one child keeps coming back to haunt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I dropped the daily thing whoops, but I’m gonna keep trying! This one is ‘Setting You Free’ plus the trope ‘role reversal’; I want to play with some of the well-established Edvy tropes, and this is a big one. I’ve never seen this specific flip before, and the most obvious ‘role reversal’ prompt is one I’m exploring in MAJOR detail over at Hero of the People.
> 
> TW: referenced suicide, grief, child death, genocide, parental abuse and C-PTSD resulting  
> NOTES: Brotherhood canon, mild AU

**4\. Setting You Free**

**or**

**Like Blood, Like Roses**

Envy doesn’t feel guilt. Guilt is one of those sticky, human emotions – related to sin, tangentially, but not the kind of thing he ever has to worry about. _Guilt_ is for humans – he’s too busy having fun. And it’s fun, isn’t it? Doing what he wants, or what Father orders him to, and they’re meant to be the same thing anyway.

Guilt is pointless.

So when – _something –_ starts to sink into his flesh, alone in an empty hostel room somewhere in the slums of New Optain – he can’t identify it, at least, not right away. It stings, and bites at the edges of his mind, and he closes his mind, trying for some semblance of sleep, but it’s just all the stronger.

_Red eyes, like the setting sun, like blood, like roses._

He’s shaking, and he’s not sure why. He doesn’t like being alone. With Father, he was never really alone, but all of that is over now, and he just wants it back.

He should have died. It would have been easier. Greed had the right idea.

Envy squeezes his eyes more firmly shut. He’s not some whimpering _child,_ alone in the dark with only the slowly-breaking orange bedside candle to keep him company. But-

But part of him still wants to go home.

\---

When the Fullmetal Alchemist – Edward, that _fucking brat –_ saves his life and sets him free, it’s with a few rules. No death. Obviously. Envy can stick to that one better than Ed thinks – killing people is fun for a while, but without any reason to, it just kind of gets dull and repetitive. No general mayhem, which is a lot more boring, but Envy supposes is _fair._

Then the hard one.

“I saved you because I think everybody deserves a second chance. But you should _do_ something with it. And I don’t –“ Ed had rubbed the back of his head. “We part ways here. Understood? You don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to you, as far as everybody else is concerned I finished you off, and you go do something useful with your life.”

Envy probably should have asked for a definition of useful. Right now, he’s just trying to figure out what humans _do._ They work. They fuck. They shit. They eat. And Envy just… watches.

And at night, when it gets dark outside and Envy starts thinking about Pride’s shadows, punishing and comforting in equal measure, he buries his face into the pillow and wishes he was brave enough to end his second chance here.

\---

Red eyes, like the noonday sky, like cherries, like autumn leaves. And the blood had come so quickly after that, streaming out the back of her ruined head –

Envy wonders what her name was.

He never found out.

\---

He doesn’t identify the feeling as _guilt_ until he starts to practice putting words to feelings. It wasn’t the kind of thing Father encouraged. You did what he told you. The rest was irrelevant. But having nothing to do and his emotions swarming him like unexpected horseflies is _pointless,_ so he digs up a list of Emotions and tries to identify them in himself.

_Anger._ Obviously. He’s angry at most things. He’s angry with Greed for dying on them. He’s angry at Edward for saving him. He’s angry at… everything, all the time.

_Sadness._ Yeah, no.

_Grief._ His hand hovers over that one, then moves on. Maybe. Maybe, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what grief feels like, or looks like, to even start identifying it.

_Regret and guilt._

He stops, then with a growl, rips the paper in half, watching it flutter to the ground and feeling his mind try to untether from his body. He wants to let it.

The memory keeps rising like a bloated corpse, a thousand bloated corpses, plenty of faces he never had to pay attention to, but they’re all _her._ Red eyes, like rubies and garnets, like poppies, like hearts, a battered teddy bear in her hand. Maybe her father gave her that. Maybe a mother, a brother, a sister, a friend.

Anything that anybody ever gave Envy, Father took away. He hasn’t thought about it for years, but back before Greed left, over a hundred years ago, Greed made him a daisy crown. It was silly. It was fun. And in the sunlight, Greed had placed it on Envy’s head with a little laugh, and then told him he looked nice.

The stupid thing would have rotted within days, anyway. It didn’t matter.

\---

He makes it further into New Optain, learns how to pickpocket – or relearns, really – and sleeps in the foyer of the library. The books there are interesting. Envy was never much of a reader before, but now he doesn’t know what else to do, so he reads anyway.

He’s been told all his life that homunculi can’t do alchemy. He finds himself reading the books anyway. And then, tucked into the back of a book, where nobody could ever have seen –

_Water – 35 L  
Carbon – 20 KG  
Ammonia – 4 L  
Lime – 1.5 KG_

He closes the book in sudden fear. But not soon enough not to see the circle, sketched out but detailed. Somebody had written it here, before returning the book.

He can’t do alchemy anyway.

But he steals the book, and curls up on the floor of another hovel, and his mind keeps going, going, going.

\---

_This is an important job. It’ll light the powderkeg we need for this seal._

_Envy nods, and prepares, and it’s only when he’s alone with Lust that he whispers, “Does it have to be a kid?”_

_“Of course it does. Humans are so protective of their babies.” Lust pats his cheek. “Don’t get too concerned. It’s just a human. Think of it like putting down a dog or something.”_

_“I don’t like that either,” he whines, but it does help. Humans are stupid, and worthless, and this is the best use Father has for them. That’s reasonable. That’s reasonable._

_When she comes skipping by, Envy knows this is the one. She’s perfect. She’s sweet, and adorable, and the perfect martyr._

_And still, part of him protests. It’s probably just all the extra souls in his heart, crying out like they always do._

_He takes the shot, but he doesn’t expect her to look up at him with such surprise. He doesn’t expect their eyes to meet._

_He almost apologizes._

_But he shoots anyway._

\---

The more Envy reads, the more he understands. The impact of the Ishvalan War, the number of people who died – _so many lives –_ the unrest in the East since then. It’s been two years since the Promised Day by now, almost nine since the Ishvalan War. It shouldn’t matter.

But somehow, it does.

“Such a small thing,” he murmurs. Such a small death. And it had just gone on and on and on, fuelling a war machine. The war machine was a good thing. It got them what they needed.

And that had gotten them – where?

Nowhere. Six feet under, or vanished into air and ash and dust.

A wasted life. An unlived life.

Envy doesn’t want to be thinking about this. But the days stretch on and on, and he’s scared and alone in the dark, and he thinks, _if there was someone here with me I wouldn’t feel so lonely,_ and he thinks, _why shouldn’t I?_ and he thinks _just because humans can’t doesn’t mean I can’t._

The chalk is easy to get. The ingredients are harder – he steals money and takes a form to go buy them all at once, and they don’t cost much at all.

And the seal –

The seal he draws out in the empty room in the wrecked building that he won’t call home. It takes him a lot of tries. He’s not used to things that have to be so precise, and he takes calipers and a ruler to the angles, keenly aware that this is not alchemy, he is not an alchemist, but he is something _better_ than an alchemist, and finally he’ll have done something special and have something of his own.

His mind spits the names of emotions out at him sometimes. _Anger. Jealousy. Fear. Bitterness. Grief. Guilt. Passion. Excitement._ He tries to learn them, to stick them to his own mental patterns, but they’re slippery things.

Then the circle is ready. He can’t even explain to himself why he wants to do this so badly. All the reasons seem – not quite right.

He piles all the ingredients in the center. It’s messy, but he supposes nothing about this _isn’t,_ and he’s got lime and sulfur on his fingers, and he adds a little human blood too, because that’s easy enough to acquire.

But when he presses his fingers to the circle, nothing happens. He even summons up her deaths’-head face in his mind – red eyes, like blood, like poppies, like rubies, brown skin, so small he could have picked her up with one hand, hair the off-white of new paper or crusted snow.

“Come on,” he seethes, pushing and then slamming his open palms on the circle. “Something! A spark! _Anything!_ ”

Nothing. The chalk design on the wood is pretty, and that’s all.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, let me _fix this_ ,” he pleads, and he’s not sure who he’s begging, but suddenly something is breaking and _sliding_ and _giving way_ and this is weak this is cowardly this is cruel- “Do one goddamn thing right and let me bring her back,” he says, eyes starting to fog, and he can’t see the room properly.

The silence is mocking him. He’s some monster borne of alchemy and he can’t even make it do this one thing for him.

He leans over and rests his head on the wooden floor, arms clutched around his stomach like he’s holding his own insides in. He kind of wants to throw up. “Please, please, please,” he begs, and the circle seems to whisper it to him, the finality of it, the simple human truth that _death is forever,_ that killing and murder and death isn’t the kind of thing he can regret and fix and erase from history.

He begins to sob. It’s not like there’s anybody to hear him.

But, suddenly, he realizes, there is. He didn’t hear his footsteps through the yelling, or maybe he was just distracted.

Ed kneels down next to him. “It’s a good circle. Well-drawn.”

Envy tries to stop the noises coming out of him, but he can’t, he _can’t,_ he can’t even find it in him to ask what happened to their agreement, _you don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to you-_

“You know, when I got told somebody was buying a bunch of concerning ingredients at the same time,” Ed sighs, “I was expecting… somebody else. Anybody else.” He reaches out to touch Envy’s shoulder, but Envy shoves him away, and he topples a little against the wall.

“Go away.”

Ed doesn’t make any move to leave. “…This isn’t what I meant when I said do something with-“

“I said _GO AWAY!”_ Envy doesn’t mean to yell, but it comes out like that anyway, and he glares at Ed, half-panting, half-sneering, the effort to keep himself together at all just so _goddamn_ much-

“I’m not leaving you here with a human transmutation circle.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“It _never_ works. Even if you could do alchemy. It never works. Understand?”

“I’m not human, I could-“

“Envy.” Ed takes Envy’s chin into his hands, forcing eye contact, and Envy can see the emotion in his eyes, read it better than he thought – _Grief,_ he thinks, _regret,_ and – one he doesn’t know, can’t name. “It never works. It doesn’t work. Death is _permanent._ ”

Envy flicks his eyes downwards, too ashamed to meet Edward’s eyes. It’d be easy to just kill him for interrupting, but he’s right. And-

And _death_ is so much of a scarier word now that the people he knew are there.

“Who were you trying to bring back?” Ed’s hand moves to Envy’s shoulder, and Envy lets it happen, because he’s too tired for anything else. “Greed? Lust?”

Envy shakes his head, but doesn’t clarify. He knows human transmutation doesn’t work on people with no souls. But with that girl, there could have-

_It doesn’t work. It never works._

“Why?” Ed asks, and it’s not quite the same as the last question, but it’s close.

It’s too humiliating, standing here in front of the person who saved his life, to tell him it wasn’t good enough. That he’s scared, that he’s lost, that he’s – he _is_ grieving, and he doesn’t know how. How did Edward explain, to the others in his life, to people he met later, that he had tried to break the laws of the world because he wanted his mother back? How had it felt, afterwards, with that bitter taste in his mouth knowing it had failed. Envy had never asked. There was never a good opportunity.

And now here he was, trying to do the same damn thing.

Envy tries to put words together, to explain something, anything. But the tears keep coming, and he keeps having to scrub them away with the sleeve of his oversized jacket, like some child, pathetic, useless. “I thought, maybe,” and his voice is so small. No monster left in it. “if I could make it like it never happened – if I could bring her back –“

“Who?”

Envy shook his head. He still didn’t know her name. “I just… thought maybe if she’d never died… everything would be fine. Everybody would _be_ here.” It sounds so stupid out loud. He didn’t really believe that. Did he? He can’t change the past. But he doesn’t understand alchemy, and he doesn’t understand death. “I know they wouldn’t, but –“ It’s getting harder and harder to keep his face clear. “It’s my fault,” he says finally, and breaks down.

Ed pulls him into his chest, and Envy hates to think it, but the way he strokes Envy’s hair, fingers dancing over his scalp and avoiding the knots – it reminds him of Lust, and that just makes everything worse even while it makes things a little bit better. If _this_ is the only person he has left to go to for comfort-

“I’m sorry,” Ed murmurs. “For everything. But especially- I’m sorry. I thought you’d be okay.”

“Okay with what?”

“On your own.”

“I’m not – I’m –“ Envy chokes on the word _fine,_ even though it’s what he’s supposed to say.

“You’re just a kid.”

Envy wants to protest. But it’s comforting, too, which is even more surprising.

“You’re just a kid,” Ed says again, “and you’re all alone.” He glances over at the circle again, and Envy can hear the flutter of his heart, the fear still so present in him after all this time. He’s gotten taller, broader in the shoulders, and when he gives Envy a warm smile through the tears in his own eyes, it almost – almost – makes Envy feel like he’s not in trouble, like he isn’t going to be punished.

He should deliver some snarky response, or fight, or lash out. Instead, when Ed takes his hand and leads him outside with all the care in the world, he follows. When Ed burns the ingredients and the circle to a char, he just watches, and lets his heart feel hollow.

“Alright,” Ed says, as they both get into the car. “Let’s start over. What do _you_ want? Seriously, whatever it is, I’ll help you get it.”

Envy has lots of answers to that. A job, a house, all the trappings of normalcy. Friends. Wine at stupid little Aerugoan cafes with patios and umbrellas. A closet full of clothes.

“A second chance,” he says finally. Ed looks surprised for a moment, then smiles. He doesn’t ask, _a second chance at what?_ He doesn’t tell Envy off for not being clearer. He just starts up some senseless chatter on the drive back.

But during one of his rambles, he claps his hands, and spins something out of the cloth of his jacket. He hands it to Envy, doesn’t acknowledge it-

It’s a daisy chain. Not a real one, obviously, but-

Ed stops himself mid-sentence at the look on Envy’s face. “Oh, don’t give me that face. I know more than you think I do, you know.”

_Greed._

Greed had talked about him to other people. Greed had _cared._ They’d all cared, hadn’t they? They were gone, but – but there were still pieces of them alive. Memories. Stupid little things. Stories.

Envy raises the daisy chin to his lips, closes his eyes with a little smile.

_Sadness. Grief. Happiness. A touch of regret, still._

_And more than a little love._


End file.
